Many electrical contacts are known in the prior art for terminating a conductor for mating. One such contact is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,844 and entitled "Hermaphroditic Electrical Contact". Other contacts are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,120,556 and 4,072,394. Such prior art contacts provide an adequate termination for an electrical conductor but have the disadvantage that they require separate manufacture and installation to each conductor. Separate manufacture and installation is undesirable in many instances.
It has been proposed that the conductor termination be eliminated and that with suitable preparation of the conductor, and a rather minor part, that the conductor itself can be an integral contact. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 890,339 and entitled "Electrical Connector Assembly", the specification and drawings thereof incorporated herein by reference. Even this system has the undesirable feature that an additional part is necessary to be manufactured and assembled to the conductor before the conductor can be its own contact. The manufacture of a system requiring additional components involves additional expenditure. Further, the system disclosed in the referenced "Electrical Connector Assembly" application presupposes that the conductor will be of a fixed size to be secured within the passage. This is not always the case and might present a problem.
Accordingly, the prior art contacts known in the art, have limitations and disadvantages. One disadvantage is that they must be securely fastened to the electrical wire strand. As the number of interconnections required between units to be mated increases, the integrity of electrical interconnection between each strand and contact becomes questionable. A more desirable electrical interconnection joins only a minimum number of electrical terminations.